Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter.
December 2008.
"What are you doing?" Dean asked, moving uncomfortably in his gym shorts as Sam finished the last arrangements of his uniform and Hermione pulled out her phone after putting her fake glasses on. "Sammy, what is she doing? Are you- are you taking a picture?" he asked, horrified. "No! You are not allowed to take a picture of me wearing- wearing this!"
"Mya?" Sam asked, a small smile playing at his lips.
"I already sent it to you," Hermione replied with a smile. "And to Bobby. And Rufus. And Jo."
"Hermione!"
"Oh, this is priceless," Sam laughed, pulling out his phone and observing the picture. "I can't decide which is worse - the short shorts or the knee-high socks."
"I think it's the red headband," Hermione supplied, only to burst into laughter once more as Dean jumped at Sam, trying to take the phone away and prevent him from spreading the picture further.
As a part of their latest case, the three hunters had to try and blend into a school. Sam jumped onto the janitor role and with her history of being an English student, Hermione managed to sneak into the role of the librarian. Being left with not many options, Dean begrudgingly accepted the role of the gym teacher.
He was regretting that decision more and more with every second that passed.
"Remind me again how you got the librarian job?" Sam asked, trying to fit better.
"Sexy librarian," Dean cut in. "What?" he asked at the looks he received in return. "It's true."
Hermione rolled her eyes before pulling her hair into a tight band and turning to look at the boys.
"So?" she asked nervously. "How do I look?"
Even as Dean and Sam smiled and told her she looked great, she couldn't bear to look in their eyes.
As much as they tried to hide it, she could see that things had changed since she told them the truth about her time in Hell. Following the conversation at Bobby's, she went back to England to wrap things up.
Things with Ron were still tense, but they managed to return to the agreement they had when Hermione still lived in the States, where even though she didn't spend as much time with Jessica-Rose as she would have liked, she was still a prominent part of her life. Sundays at the Weasleys' were a must, of course, and with the borrowing of Bobby's house whenever it was Hermione's turn with Jessica-Rose, they made it work.
Now, almost a month after the whole ordeal with Anna, Hermione was back to traveling with the boys on a semi-regular basis. This was their first serious case since she got back - even though Dean still denied that there was any case in this town as the girl who claimed to be possessed didn't see any black smoke or smelled any sulfur.
And, as it was, the case just happened to be in a school Dean and Sam went to in 1997, just a few months after Dean's kiss with Hermione but before he found out the truth about her being a witch.
She had the hint of a feeling that there was more to their time there than the boys were telling her but, as her relationship with them was strained at the best of days lately, decided not to push it. Instead, she forced a smile on her lips - since when did she have to force a smile when with Dean and Sam? - and headed towards the door of the motel room they were currently residing in.
"Are you coming?" she asked with a glance over her shoulder. "Wouldn't want to be late on our first day. It leaves a bad impression."
"If we're lucky, it will be our last day, as well," Dean muttered underneath his breath.
"Oh, I'm not sure I'd call it 'lucky'," Sam commented dryly. "I wouldn't object to a couple more pictures like that to pass around."
Of all of the things Hermione expected the case to turn out to be, the vengeful spirit of a regretful bully was at the very bottom of the list.
It left her wondering about her own bullies. About the kids who teased her at elementary school about being weird as the daughter of a drunk. About Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherins who used to laugh about her frizzy hair and too-large front teeth.
She couldn't say she was surprised that Dirk McGregor came to regret his actions - after all, even Ron was a bully to her once upon a time and he had grown to be the father of her child. It was more that she couldn't help but wonder what had come of them and if any of them ever saw the error of their ways.
It was also undeniably a way to avoid thinking about Amanda Heckerling - the girl who was apparently Dean's girlfriend during the time he and Sam attended the school.
She wasn't jealous. She was adamant about not being jealous. Even if it was after the kiss they shared, there wasn't anything serious going on between her and Dean at the time, and they certainly weren't exclusive. She wouldn't be surprised if she find out Dean had many girlfriend during his high school years.
After all, as unique as the Winchesters' lives were, neither of them spent their senior year living in a tent on a run from a Dark Lord.
Still, she couldn't stop thinking about it. And, with those thoughts, came the thoughts she was trying to push back since she came back from Hell.
"I want you to stay."
How many times did she wish he'd say that? How long did she hope he'd call her, change his mind and tell her he wanted her there? But now, with him knowing the truth, she knew it could never happen.
He just didn't look at her the same way he did before he knew.
This line of thought followed her for a few weeks as they travelled, before they arrived to a town called Greybull where people stopped dying. From the moment they set foot in the town, Hermione had a bad feeling, and it was only enhanced the longer they stayed.
When the survivor of a point blank bullet to the heart talked to them, she felt a chill running down her back. When they sat in the motel room, going through what they knew and finding out this was an attempt to break another one of the seals by killing to Reapers under a solstice moon, she felt chilled down to her bones. Even walking through the town, she felt as though someone was constantly watching her, only to turn around and see nothing.
By the time they were preparing to call back the soul of the last person to die in the town, Hermione was on edge. It seemed as though Dean, for his part, was mostly bored.
"You sure this is gonna work?" he asked, looking through the details of the ritual they were attempting to build as Sam and Hermione were prepping the last few touches.
"No," Sam admitted. "But if his spirit's around, this should smoke him out. What?" he added as Dean all but slammed the notebook he was holding shut.
"This job is jacked, that's what," Dean replied.
"How so?"
"You want me to gank a monster or torch a corpse?" Dean asked. "Hey, let's light it up, right? But this? If we fix whatever this is, people will start dropping dead. Good people."
"They're not supposed to be alive, Dean," Hermione said. "It's not… it's not right."
"And you'd know?"
"Look, I don't want them to die either, Dean," Sam cut n before Hermione could fully process the sting she felt at Dean's words. "But there's a natural order."
"You're kidding, right?" Dean asked.
"What?"
"You don't see the irony in that? The three of us, we're like the poster boys of the unnatural order. All we do is ditch death."
"Yeah, but the normal rules don't really apply to us, do they?" Sam asked.
At that, even Hermione turned to look at him with shock.
"We're no different than anybody else," Dean protested.
"I'm infected with demon blood," Sam replied. "You've died three times already – that I know of," he added quickly. "Hermione's been to hell. I know you wanna think of yourself as Joe the Plumber, Dean, but you're not. Neither am I or Mya. Sooner you accept that, the better off you're gonna be."
"Joe the Plumber was a douche," Dean muttered, and Hermione let out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding during the boys' argument.
"You gonna help us finish this?" Sam asked and Dean sighed, finally standing up to lend a hand only for the three of them to freeze as a voice called out.
"Hey!" They turned to see a middle-aged man walking towards them, and Hermione was certain she wasn't the only one who was aware what they looked like, standing in a cemetery in the middle of the night. "What are you doing here?"
"Uh…" Sam started. "Look, just take it easy."
"What the hell is this?" the man asked, his flashlight pointing at the ritual they were preparing.
"This is…" Hermione started. "This is not what it looks like."
"Really?" the man asked. "Because it looks like devil worship."
"What?" Dean asked, his voice suddenly a lot higher than it used to be. "No, no. This is not devil worship. This… This is… This is the…" He looked at Sam and Hermione for help before sighing. "I don't have a good answer."
"Look, we're leaving," Sam was quick to say.
"You're not going anywhere," the man said, taking a step closer to them, "ever again… Sam."
The man's eyes rolled in their sockets, revealing white for a moment, and Hermione suddenly felt herself unable to breathe.
"Alastair."
It was with an almost unconscious movement that Dean placed himself between Hermione and the Demon.
"I thought you got deep-fried, extra crispy," he said, his voice slightly shaking.
"No," Alistair smiled. "Just the pediatrician I was riding. His wife's still looking for him, it's hilarious."
Hermione felt her hands clench into fists at Alistair's words. She was certain that if she was able to move, she would have punched him, stupid as that might be. As it was, she was frozen in fear and Alistair smiled.
"Anyway," he went on, "No time to chat. Got a hot date with death."
A flick of his wrist sent Dean flying away, knocking into a tombstone, and another pushed Hermione to the ground.
"Don't worry," he said with a smile. "We'll have our fun later."
She wasn't aware what happened later. She didn't know what happened to make Alistair disappear. Dean waking up and the three of them going back to their motel room seemed like a dream, and if the brothers were talking, she didn't know a word they were saying.
It wasn't until Dean put his hand on her arm that she even realized she was packing.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I… I have to go."
Everything felt like a mess, and she didn't know anything other than that she couldn't stay another minute in this town. Not while Alistair was here. Maybe later, she could come back and help the boys, but right now…
"I need to go," she repeated.
"You can't," Dean said. "Mya, you can't go. We need you –"
"Need me?" Hermione repeated. "Dean, I… there's nothing I can do to help you guys here."
"Are you kidding?" Sam asked. "There's everything you can do. Mya, you know Alistair better than everyone else. If anyone knows how to defeat him –"
"Then it wouldn't be someone who freezes at the thought of him!" Hermione snapped. "You… you don't understand. I can't do it. I can't face him, and trying will only put you guys in danger because you'll have to look after me. And I can't let that happen."
"Well, you can't just go!" Sam protested.
"I can and I am!"
"No, you're not," Dean cut in. "Mya… Hermione, look at me." Hermione raised her head, looking at Dean through blurry eyes for a moment before looking away. Taking a step closer, Dean lifted her chin and levelled their eyes. "I know that it's hard. And I know that, no matter how hard we try, Sam and I will never understand what you've gone through. But you can't keep running away from this."
"Wanna bet?" Hermione wished her voice had a hundredth of the confidence her words did.
"No, I don't 'wanna bet'," Dean all but spat. "You need to face him, Hermione. You have to face what you've gone through. We'll kill the son of a bitch, you know we will. But we need you to do that."
"I…" Hermione's voice broke. "He keeps reminding me what I did down there. And I hate it. I hate it, and I hate that I did it, and I hate him."
"Good," Sam said, moving closer to the two of them. "Focus on that hate. It's better than fear, that's for certain. You want him dead? Well, we do, too. So let's do it."
"Let's do it," Dean repeated. "Mya?"
"Y- yeah," Hermione nodded, her hand moving down to hold Dean's. "Let's do it."
